Dongwon Group withdraws bid for McDonald’s Korea acquisition

Dongwon Enterprise Co., Ltd. reportedly dropped its plan to acquire McDonald’s Korea. The company is withdrawing its bid for the takeover and already stopped the process for the deal.

The Dongwon Group was said to have canceled its bid after a failed negotiation with McDonald’s Korea. The two sides were not able to reach a middle ground for their differences thus, the South Korean conglomerate decided to just abandon its acquisition plan for the fast-food chain, The Korea Economic Daily reported.

On Thursday this week, the company announced its decision by simply saying, "We reviewed the takeover of McDonald's Korea but our conclusion was not to proceed with it."

An official of Dongwon added, “We will not proceed in further negotiations with McDonald's Korea due to an irreconcilable difference in our stance on contract conditions. We cannot reveal further details due to the legal terms of the contract."

Earlier this year, the Dongwon Group emerged as the only participant in the preliminary bid for the sale of McDonald’s Korea. Due diligence was also carried out in January, and the two companies started negotiating about the price. Business insiders said that the talks were halted because they could not agree on the terms.

This is the second time that the attempt to sell McDonald’s Korea has failed. The first time happened in 2016, and at that time, the potential buyer was the Carlyle Group, a private equity fund company.

It has formed a consortium for the takeover, and Maeil Dairies got on board to pursue the acquisition deal. However, the dairy company pulled out, and Carlyle’s bid fell apart. Last year, McDonald’s Korea was put up for sale once again by McDonald’s US which wholly owns the Korean unit and Dongwon was the lone bidder.

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